


The Padawan

by BatuuPrincess



Series: Damerey Week [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Force-Sensitive Poe Dameron, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-03 23:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16334885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BatuuPrincess/pseuds/BatuuPrincess
Summary: After a mission gone wrong on Coruscant, Rey finds herself with a new padawan.





	The Padawan

**Author's Note:**

> Based off the prompt the force.

Rey bent over, gasping for breath as she leaned against an alley wall somewhere in the heart of Coruscant. They’d been running for what felt like hours, chased through the winding streets on multiple levels by a very determined group of stormtroopers, their covers apparently blown.

They’d sent BB-8 back to Rose on the ship, the information they’d gathered too important not to make it back to the Resistance. BeeBee was under strict instructions to take off in twenty minutes, whether or not they were on board. They still had about ten minutes left by Rey’s calculations, more than enough to get them back to the ship, if only…

Rey’s heart sank as she looked from Finn to Poe, the expression mirrored on both faces confirming what she already knew. They were surrounded, the First Order closing in from both directions, and there was nowhere left to run.

Rey closed her eyes, taking a moment to reach out in the Force, bringing it around her as she prepared for whatever came next. She could feel the fear, her own mingling with Poe’s next to her, along with the deadly calm coming from Finn. She opened her eyes to find Finn staring straight ahead, his face impassive as his years of training took over.

It still shocked her to see him like this, a completely different person with his face devoid of emotion, his programming turning him into FN-2187 right before their eyes. It happened every time they got into a situation like this, Finn disappearing into his former persona until the danger had passed. She was always glad when it was over and Finn returned, though that was seeming less and less likely to happen in this case.

Finn spoke first, his voice flat. “They’re going to want to take us alive, the price on your head is too high to pass up,” he said, looking at Rey. “It’ll be a promotion for them all if they bring you to Ren in one piece.”

Poe’s eyes darkened at the mention of Kylo Ren. “Well, we’re just gonna have to make sure that doesn’t happen. Shoot to kill, don’t give them a choice. We either walk out of here together or die trying.”

“Put your weapons down, and come out with your hands up,” came the modulated voice of one of the stormtroopers, slowly coming into view as they inched around the corner, blasters drawn.

Rey looked at her friends, Poe giving a quick nod as they got into formation, years of working and fighting together providing them with a shorthand, no words necessary. They stood back to back to back, a triangle of Resistance against the First Order, no one left uncovered. She felt Poe’s hand reach for hers, a quick grip of her fingers before all hell broke loose.

The moment stretched as Rey took in a deep breath, time itself slowing down, the three of them lifting their weapons in unison as the first shots rang out.

For a moment it was pure chaos, the entirety of Rey’s world narrowing down to the scream of blaster bolts and the soft hum of her lightsaber. She could feel the Force take over, her movements no longer her own as she deflected bolt after bolt.

Poe and Finn worked in concert, taking out stormtroopers coming from both directions, but Rey quickly realized it wouldn’t be enough. The troopers just kept coming, an infinite resource for which they were no match. She could feel her friends tiring as the fight dragged on, her own reflexes slowing down the longer they fought.

She saw the bolt coming just a second too late, pushing at it in the Force so it just skimmed the side of Poe’s thigh. He went down instantly, Rey covering him as he slid toward one of the walls. She made sure Finn was ok before she dropped down to examine the wound.

There were a couple of inches of charred flesh, but it was relatively shallow. Nothing a little bacta couldn’t cure, should they make it out alive.

“You’ll survive,” she said, ripping a piece off the hem of her shirt to cover the gash.

He laughed. “Only if you go help Finn. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.” He squeezed off two shots over her head.

Rey stood and turned, trying to hear what Finn was yelling, when another trooper came around the corner.

She felt the bolt as soon as it left the blaster, too fast and too close for her slowed response. She knew exactly where it would hit in the middle of her chest, three inches right of her rapidly beating heart. She hoped it would be quick; she really didn’t want to watch her friends die. She closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable pain.

And waited. The alley had gone strangely quiet, the sounds of blasters and shouting stormtroopers disappearing completely. She opened her eyes, the crackling bolt frozen six inches in front of her.

“You did it, Rey!” shouted Finn from behind her, his voice back to it’s normal timbre. Rey looked around, noticing for the first time that entire alley was stuck in place - every stormtrooper stood motionless, multiple blaster bolts hovered mid-air, there was even an alley cat she’d failed to notice before that sat frozen, halfway through a lick of its paw.

“This isn’t me,” she said locking eyes with Finn. They turned as one to where Poe sat against the wall with one hand outstretched to Rey, a look of pure panic on his face. “Poe?”

He looked about five seconds from hyperventilating, his eyes wild as he glanced around. “I don’t know how I’m doing this, but we gotta get out of here before it stops.”

Rey agreed, carefully extricating herself from the bolt hovering in front of her chest before running over to Poe. This changed everything, but Rey didn't have time to think about that right now.

“Up,” she said, helping him to his feet. He couldn’t put pressure on the injured leg, Rey putting his arm around her shoulders as Finn did the same on his other side.

“I’m just gonna slow you guys down,” said Poe as they staggered as fast as they could toward the end of the alley. Rey could see the blaster bolts inching forward as Poe lost whatever control he had over them.

“Too bad,” said Finn, picking up the pace. “We’re not leaving without you.”

“Do you think we’ll make it in time?” asked Rey, slightly breathless from Poe’s added weight.

Finn looked at the chrono on his wrist. “It’ll be close.”

“Then let’s hope BeeBee’s feeling a little insubordinate today,” replied Rey, focusing on the voices she heard coming from the alley. The stormtroopers were on the move again.

Finn laughed. “When is he not?”

They were closer to the ship than Rey realized, the three of them hobbling around a corner to find themselves less than a block from the landing pad, their shuttle still parked exactly where they’d left it. It was a straight shot, but the troopers were gaining on them, Rey and Finn sharing a look behind Poe’s head as the footsteps got closer.

A shot rang out as the troopers rounded the corner, Rey and Finn half dragging Poe up the entry ramp as Rose slammed it shut behind them.

“Get some bacta on that wound,” shouted Rey as she handed her half of Poe off to Rose. “We gotta get out of here!”

The shuttle rocked as a shot hit the hull.

Rey raced toward the cockpit, running through the remaining pre-flight sequence in record time. She concentrated power to the rear shields as she lifted off, still taking fire from the remainder of the stormtroopers.

“Do you think our clearance still works?” asked Finn from cockpit door, Rose pushing him aside to sit in the co-pilot’s seat.

“Let’s hope they were dumb enough not to call this in,” answered Rey.

She hit the button to upload the code and held her breath, a tense ten seconds passing before they were given the all-clear to break atmo.

Rose didn’t hesitate, punching them into hyperspace the second they had cleared the planet.

They all breathed a sigh of relief as the stars stretched and swirled around them, nothing to do but let the ship take them home.

“I’m gonna go check on Poe,” said Rey to nobody in particular. She’d give Finn and Rose a minute to properly greet each other, knowing from experience that they’d carry on with or without her present.

She ducked out of the cockpit, finding Poe sitting on the single cot in the main hold, his head down. He’d been eerily quiet on the trip back to the ship, though she supposed she could chalk it up to pain. She could see the bacta patch sticking out of the rip in his pants, the scrap of her shirt laying next to him.

“How are you holding up?” she asked, sitting down next to him.

He wordlessly reached out a shaking hand, Rey taking it in her own.

“You’re freezing,” she said, trying to rub a little life into his digits.

He looked up at her, Rey recognizing the look of fear in his eyes. It had been the same for her the first time she used the Force, that feeling of power leaving you curiously empty once it was gone.

“What did I just do?”

She smiled at him. “You just saved us all.”

 

 

When General Organa had approached Rey with the idea for a new Jedi academy, Rey had pictured days spent teaching an adorable group of children how to lift rocks and build lightsabers, always ending in a group hug from her adoring students. What she ended up with was the oldest and surliest padawan the galaxy had ever known.

Before she had started training him, Rey had actually liked Poe Dameron, had considered him a friend. They’d fought together, flown together, cried together, even laughed together in those rare quiet moments of the war. Now? She watched as he picked himself off the floor, arms crossed and feet honest to god stomping, and she realized she may have gotten her wish. She was teaching a child.

“This is a waste of time,” he said for the tenth time that week. “I could be out there doing something useful for the Resistance.”

Rey rolled her eyes. It was the same line she’d heard each and every day since they’d returned from Coruscant, Leia grounding Poe as soon as she caught wind of what happened in that alley.

_“General, with all due respect, I’m the best pilot you’ve got,” said Poe, giving Leia his most winning smile, the one that generally got him exactly what he wanted. “You can’t afford to keep me on the ground just because of some fluke.”_

_Leia gave him a sharp look before softening into a smile. “I have plenty of decent pilots,” she said, patting him on the shoulder,“and one Jedi. You’re grounded until you can learn the basics.”_

_Leia held up a hand to stop his incoherent sputtering. “You’ll be that much more dangerous in a cockpit if you learn to use this, Poe. Just look at Rey. Or my brother.” She turned her attention to Rey. “Congratulations, you have your first student,” she said, not giving either a chance to protest before she walked out the door, leaving Poe and Rey to stare at each other in disbelief._

Three weeks later, and she wasn’t sure who Leia was trying to punish more. Poe may have been grounded, but Rey hadn’t spend the last two kriffing years of her life training and learning everything there was to know about the Jedi Order to be saddled with a thirty-something padawan who refused to even _try._

“Yeah, and so could I,” she shot back, finally done with his shit. “And yet, here I am stuck with you.”

She watched as his face contorted in anger. “Don’t look at me, I don’t want to be here anymore than you. I’ve told you guys over and over that you’ve got it wrong. I’m not Force sensitive.”

“That is a load of banthacrap and we both know it,” scoffed Rey. “I was there, remember? I saw you freeze those bolts. For kriff’s sake, you stopped everything in a one-block radius! If you want to play dumb, that’s your prerogative, but don’t lie. Not to me.”

“That was involuntary!”

“So then make it voluntary!”

“That’s what you’re supposed to be doing!”

She shook her head at him, an idea forming in the back of her mind. “I can’t teach someone who refuses to learn.”

He looked appropriately cowed as she walked to the edge of the training room, picking up two wooden staffs from one of the rickety old shelves lining the perimeter.

She tossed one of the staffs to Poe, planting her feet directly across from him. “If you aren’t going to learn to use the Force, we can at least brush up on your hand-to-hand. That way I won’t be held responsible the next time you get bested by the First Order,” she said, gently twirling her staff. 

She was showing off, trying to egg him on a bit, and it appeared to be working, Poe settling in to his fighting stance. She could feel his anger simmering low in the Force, fully realizing that this was a dangerous game she was playing. Emotion, according to the Jedi Code, led to the dark side, but right now that was a risk she was willing to take. They could figure out dark and light later, right now she just needed him to use the damn Force.

“You and I both know my hand-to-hand is just fine,” he said, his smile more a sneer than anything else. “I believe I’ve even beat you a time or two.”

Rey took a sideways step, Poe mirroring her exactly. “That’s because I play fair. Kylo Ren doesn’t,” she said, using a gentle push in the Force to drop him five feet back, flat on his ass.

He sat stunned for a split second, the look on his face making Rey second guess her plan before he was up and charging toward her.

Their sticks clashed in the center of the room, the sound harsh and punishing to Rey’s ears. She blocked and parried, getting in a few good hits herself as Poe came at her over and over again.

He was good, there was no doubt about that, his hits precise and his footwork much more disciplined than her own. She continued to administer small lashes in the Force, the first few breaking through and sending him stumbling back a few steps. By the third or fourth time, he was blocking her automatically, Rey not even sure he knew he was doing it.

As the sweat started to drip down her back, she realized that there was a distinct possibility that he had been holding back the previous times they’d sparred. There was no trace of the Force in his moves, just brute strength and deeply ingrained training from his years of service with the New Republic and Resistance.

Rey was losing ground, Poe pushing her back as he got in a well-placed hit. The thought crossed her mind that she may have been in over her head as she stumbled back one, two, three steps before losing her feet completely, falling into a shelf of old weights with a spectacular crash.

“Rey!” shouted Poe, a look of horror on his face as he reached for her.

Rey sat blinking on the ground as an ominous crack came from above her head, the ancient shelf finally giving up the ghost. She ducked and covered her head, waiting for the crack of free weights against her skull, hoping that someone had thought better than putting the heavy ones on top.

She opened her eyes a second later to find Poe standing in front her, the Force coursing around him as he struggled to hold the weights in place mere inches above Rey’s head.

She scrambled out from under the fallout zone, taking the three or four steps to Poe at a run. She wrapped him in a hug, his own arms going around her as the weights fell to the floor with an almighty crash.

“Kriff, Rey I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he said, holding on to her for dear life. He took a step back, holding her at arm’s length as he examined her, his eyes wild. “Are you hurt?”

“I’ll live,” she said, unable to keep the smile off her face. Her back would be sore in the morning, but that was the least of her concern right now. “The real question is: can you do it again?”

He gave a tentative smile, taking a step back and letting his eyes fall closed in concentration. She could feel the Force ripple around them as Poe tried to access it, his technique still a little rough, but that was something they could work on. She watched as one of the weights rose three feet in the air before being put gently down next to a neighboring pile.

She waited until all objects were safely on the ground before she wrapped him in another hug.

“You did it,” she said, the soft kiss she placed on his lips a surprise to both of them.

He stared at her in disbelief for a second before pulling her back in, this time to kiss her properly.

When they finally broke apart, lips swollen and both a little breathless, Poe was truly smiling for the first time in weeks.

“If I had known that was my reward, I would have figured it out a lot sooner.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr at [BatuuPrincess](https://batuuprincess.tumblr.com).
> 
> Looking for more Damerey Week goodness? Check out the [Damerey Connection](http://damereyconnection.tumblr.com).


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